


Austr(al)ia

by weezly14



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1517441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Some people will always have Paris. She will always have pre-colonial Australia, apparently."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Austr(al)ia

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the DW Secret Santa ficathon. Been meaning to transfer tumblr stuff over to here, so, months later, it begins. Enjoy.

            “So, there’s good news and bad news.”

            She knows that tone. It’s the “please don’t get angry remember I was trying to take you somewhere nice it’ll all work out in the end” voice he gets, complete with that daft grin like he’s trying to charm her out of anger. (She resents how well it works. But not today.)

            “What’s the bad news?”

            “Well, the good news is that they’re going to let us go.”

            “And the bad news?”

            His smile falters a bit.

            “ _Bad_ might be the wrong word, perhaps—”

            “Doctor.”

            He takes a deep breath.

            “We’ve got to get married first.”

\---

            It started as a trip to Vienna. (“The Christmas market, Rose, it’s brilliant, you’ve never seen anything like it, Vienna in the winter—”)

            Instead of Austria, though, they landed in _Australia_. In the summer, apparently, or winter, or however the seasons are here. _Hot_. _Desert_.

            And then, then they were captured.

            Just another day, right?

\---

            “Married?”

            “It’s not a big deal, it’s just—”

            It’s just the Doctor, it’s just a wedding, it’s just the sort of thing she gave up hoping would ever happen for her as the only future she wants is one with him, and he’s made it abundantly clear he’s not the marrying type—and, moreover, that her role in his life is temporary at best.

            Some people will always have Paris. She will always have pre-colonial Australia, apparently.

            He drops his gaze to his trainers—red now from the earth, and she wonders if that will wash out or whether they’ll just have to get another pair, whether he’ll pick white again (so impractical with their lifestyle) or will choose another color—maybe red, red’s nice, she wonders if he’d like red chucks, though maybe not with this suit, maybe a different one, something with pinstripes still—maybe blue—

            “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

            Her heart softens. Damn him.

            “It’ll be just a quick thing and it won’t mean anything to anyone else. We’ll go back to the TARDIS and I’ll take you—we’ll go wherever you want.”

            She wants to say something about how well that’s worked in the past but he’s clearly not in a place to hear that right now. She sighs.

            “Yeah, all right,” she says, smiling a bit, and he smiles, too.

            “So, you’ll marry me, Rose Tyler—in the presence of none of your closest family or friends, in the wrong country, wrong century—”

            “Least we’ve got the right planet, yeah?”

            “Least there’s that.”

            He’s smiling at her, moving closer, and God, she wishes for once that they could just be normal—that he could be—that he could be a bit more human. That they could really do this some day—the wedding and the house and—not even the house just—

            She won’t leave him. She’s less sure, though, that he won’t eventually leave her. But even still, they have these moments—banter, hugs, hand holding—he smiles at her sometimes and she’s sure it’s not just her, and yet—

            She hugs him, breathes in the scent that is just Doctor. It’s a bit different now than it used to be—instead of leather, linen—but she relishes it just the same, the chance to be close to him. He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her closer and they stay that way for a bit before he pulls away.

            Holding out his hand, he grins. “Ready to get married?”

            She takes it. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

\---

            It’s a lovely ceremony, really. Quick, but with the sun setting and—

            And it means nothing. He’s her best mate, they’ve never even properly kissed (Cassandra doesn’t count).

            There is no “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

            No “You may now kiss the bride.”

            And maybe Rose was never the sort of little girl who imagined what her wedding would be like—maybe once upon a time she saw herself with Jimmy Stone, or settling with Mickey at the Estate—maybe she never imagined she’d be here, traveling the universe, time and space and all of it, with this man, but—

            But, somehow, it’s perfect.

\---

            In the end he does take her to Austria for the Christmas market. It really is as wonderful as he’d promised.

            (He calls it their honeymoon, but otherwise the wedding is never spoken of again.)

\---

            “How long are you gonna stay with me?”

            “Forever.”

            She glances at him to find him already glancing at her. And maybe it’s the question, maybe it’s everything they’ve gone through lately, maybe it’s the way the hugs linger, the way she feels his gaze on her sometimes, the warnings and the feelings of foreboding, but she makes a decision.

            “Shouldn’t be surprised. We’re married, after all,” she reminds him. His smile widens. “Stuck with me.”

            “Yeah, well. That’s not so bad. Right?”

            She won’t ever leave him, and she’s been with him long enough to know he won’t leave her (unless he gets it in him that it’s for her own good, which they’ve argued about plenty). She gets the feeling, though, that if anything’s going to change between them that it’s going to have to come from her. How he could _not_ know how she feels at this point—and yet the question in his eyes—

            She takes his hand. “Right.”

            It’s progress.  

\---

            She loses him.

            Or maybe they lose each other.

            (One step forward, three steps back.)

\---

            After they check into the hotel she goes with her mum to get clothes and toiletries. The zeppelin won’t arrive until tomorrow, after all, they’ll need pajamas and toothbrushes and things.

            And it’s all very—and—but he’s here—but—and—

            Her mum goes to pick up things for the two of them and sends her off to buy him some things. She picks up a pair of pajamas for him, and a pack of socks, and pants, and toothpaste and toothbrushes. He’ll need clothes, too. Trousers and shirts and another pair of shoes, at least. A job, an ID, shampoo and hair gel and a razor—she nearly gets out of line to run and grab him one but decides he’ll just have to deal with a day’s stubble, they can get razors when they get back to London—

            Which raises the question of where he’ll _live_ , and what this all means, because he—he’s got one life and he wants to spend it with her, and all the things she never thought she could ever have with him—

            “For your husband?” the cashier asks, and the reply—“No, my friend,” is at the tip of her tongue except—

            And she’s too tired to deal with any of this, too exhausted, too confused, too—

            “Yeah,” she replies with a tight smile.

\---

            He’s lying on the bed when they get back—when she gets back (her mum had seen fit to get two rooms, leaving it to Rose to decide whose room she wanted to stay in), and she sets it at the edge by his feet.

            “Got you some stuff,” she tells him. He sits up and reaches for the bag.

            “Thanks.” He rifles through it a bit and she fiddles with her sleeve. “Are you staying here tonight?” he asks without looking at her.

            “I dunno.”

            He nods, and it’s not _fair_ , that she’s finally with him, in a universe where they can actually be together—with him yet feeling like this, like there are miles and years and a fully Time Lord version of him standing between them. It hadn’t seemed like such a gap back on the beach, when the other him—the original him, her him who’s still _him_ —was actually standing between them. Then he—this he—told her he loved her, and she kissed him, and held his hand, and watched _him_ disappear. And somehow in the wake of that she can barely look at him, can’t bring herself to reach for him as easily as she had just hours ago (and _God_ this has been the longest day). 

            He swings his legs over the side of the bed, gets to his feet, bag in hand. “I’m gonna go—” he starts, motioning to the en suite. She nods.

            “Yeah, okay.”

            The door clicks closed behind him and she sinks onto the bed.

            Makes a decision.

            When she hears the water run she changes into her own pajamas and sits on the bed, waiting for him. Hardly the first time they’ve shared a bed. (Because he is him, right? Same memories, same—same feelings?) (Yes, of course, he’d said—)

            The water stops.

            She hears rustling, and a few moments later he emerges, dressed in the jimjams she bought him, hair damp from the shower, feet bare. She’s torn between wanting to run from all of this and wanting to kiss him again. Neither of which would be very productive in this instance. He pauses at the door, as if surprised to see her still there.

            “You done in there?”

            “Yeah. All yours.”

            She brushes past him quickly and locks herself in the bathroom. Takes a quick shower, changes, brushes her teeth. When she reenters the room he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, much like she’d been.

            “You don’t have to stay,” he tells her. Something in her stomach twists.

            “What do you mean?”

            “You don’t—if you don’t want to be here. You can go. I’d understand.”

            Oh, Doctor.

            She goes and joins him on the bed. Close but not touching.

            “It’s a lot to process, yeah? But I still—I still wanna be here. With you.”

            “Sure?”

            Is she? He looks the same, sounds the same, and yet—but—

            She takes his hand. He laces their fingers, and it’s so familiar, and—

            “Yeah.”

            He smiles, then, a small, soft thing, and that’s familiar, too.

            “Come on, let’s go to bed. Big day tomorrow,” she says, releasing his hand and climbing up and under the covers. He doesn’t move and she’s afraid for a moment that she’s messed this up, somehow, read him wrong. “Is this—”

            “Do you—do you want me to—or I can sleep on the couch, if—”

            “No, I—if you’re okay with it, then, yeah. It’s fine.”

            He nods, and crawls under the covers with her.

            “Suppose this is what married couples do, anyway,” he says, face only a few inches away from hers on the next pillow. “Share a bed.”

            “That what we are, Doctor?” she asks with a slight smile.

            “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Australia already.”

            And somehow, it’s exactly the right thing to say, exactly what she needed to hear.

            “’Course not. Just testing you is all.”

            “I remember everything, Rose.”

            He’s so serious. But then, he’s always been serious, when it comes to these sorts of things. Whenever it got—whenever feelings—their feelings—came up, he always—it’s nice to know, in any case, that some things haven’t changed.

            “Good.”

            Pause.

            “Do married couples also kiss goodnight?” he asks. Her stomach flips.

            “Some do,” she replies with a smile.

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            He leans forward, brushes his lips against hers, smiling. “Good night, Rose Tyler.”

            “Good night, Doctor.”

            “Still the Doctor, then?”

            “No arguments from me.”

            She throws an arm over his waist, and he takes that as his cue to pull her closer against him.

            She’s still tired and still processing, but it still feels like progress. Like moving in the right direction with her Doctor, with his one human life that he wants to spend with _her_.

            She’ll take it.

\---

            They take a trip—well, several trips. But this one—he takes her to Australia. “Since we didn’t really get to see much of it last time.”

            And they’re together, properly, and living in a flat in London, Sunday tea with her mum and Tony and Pete, dates and work and cooking together and dishes and laundry, and they’ve not really talked about marriage, properly, with a judge and ceremony in this universe in this century, but he still gets down on one knee (and she’s half in shock and half wondering if the red dirt will stain, she hopes not as she quite likes these trousers on him) and asks, properly, if she’ll marry him.

            (Her answer, of course, is yes.)


End file.
